


like some 80's teen movie

by messofhappiness



Category: Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Sex, This fandom needs more fic, Unbeta'd, awkward teenage hormones, senior prom because that's classic 80's, they're probably 18 here, this is the 00's obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 00:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13513410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofhappiness/pseuds/messofhappiness
Summary: When he gets home, he adds a big, fat section about sex to the Guide, including a very long essay explaining how it ruins lives and all your hopes and dreams.





	like some 80's teen movie

Somehow in the panic of shooting zombies, Ned lets it slip out that he and Moze haven’t had sex yet.

“You haven’t slept with her yet?!” Cookie exclaims.

Ned feels a flush creep into his cheeks. He doesn’t really expect that kind of reaction from him, but then again, who was he to underestimate his best friend? Cookie practically fell over with lust when he lost his virginity to some college girl he’d met at a tech conference.

“I mean, we’ve, like, napped together on the couch,” he says, trying to explain himself. “Actually, that didn’t last very long, we got in trouble for that. Other than that, I mean…” He doesn’t want to go into further detail because like  _ hell _ did he need Cookie knowing about his sex life.

Cookie pauses the video game they’re playing and shakes his head in disbelief. “You mean to tell me that after nearly four years of dating—not even counting how long you guys have been friends—you guys haven’t even sealed the deal? I’ve avoided having the sex talk with you ‘cause I thought it’d be weird but, man, do I have a thing or two to teach yo—”

“Dude!” Ned sighs. This definitely didn’t need to come up when his girlfriend was coming over in two hours for their Friday night ritual. “I don’t know, okay? It’s not exactly the easiest thing to bring up.”

“No, it’s not, and that’s why you just grow a pair! I mean, Moze is a smart girl. You just have to get in there and, you know, do it! That’s why it’s called ‘doing  _ it _ ’?”

Ned scoffs to make a point and crosses his arms. “Well, what if I just don’t want to?” God, was that the biggest understatement of his life. He thought about it almost every night back when he was going through the last stages of his puberty, almost into their first year together. Now it triggered even when she did so much as change into his clothes before they did homework in his room (or, well, tried to do homework).

“Ned, Ned, Ned,” he starts. “You really never think about having sex with Moze? I thought you guys would’ve done it by last year at least—”

Ned rubs a finger against his temple. “Can you please stop using the words ‘Moze’ and ‘sex’ in the same sentence?” he asks. “And why does this matter anyway? Everything’s fine between us. It’s been great, actually, as usual.”

Cookie takes a swig of his soda can and looks at him, obviously with some great revelation that Ned hasn’t thought about before. “It matters because prom’s coming up in 3 months, and I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t want to be stuck in a hotel room hearing sounds through thin walls—”

“Okay, okay, I got it! Just stop talking about it, will you?” He lets out a sigh and shakes out the tension in his shoulders before reaching over to unpause the game. “Look, I’ve got a couple of months to figure it out. You think it’s easy ‘cause you and your college girl were too drunk to realize that there was kind of an age difference.”

“Hey! I cherish that night with all of my heart. She was a nice girl, and I would have gotten her number if we weren’t late for our small groups in the morning.”

“Oh yeah? What was her name again?”

Cookie falls silent, and he’s sure he closed the sex conversation for good.

 

*

*

*

 

Until he sees Moze later that night. Dammit, Cookie.

“So, uh…” He tries to position himself comfortably on the couch, but really he just wants to punch himself because he can’t believe he’s actually asking her this.

Moze raises an eyebrow at him with a mouthful of potato chips. “What?” she asks. She was probably going to witness him pee his pants for the first time in ten years.

He feels his palms get sweaty. “What do you think about, you know… _ it _ ?”

She stares at him blankly, and, man, that has got to be the worst substitution for the word  _ sex _ ever.

He clears his throat before speaking again. “You know, the deed? The shaft in the drill, thing, or whatever—”

“Sex?” she says without blinking. How is it so easy for her to say it when he feels like he’s back in sixth grade with Gordy’s “birds and the bees” flashcards?

“Yeah,” he says, lightly punching her arm and shifting his weight away from her. God, he hasn’t been this awkward with her since the day Suzie suddenly came back. “I don’t know, three years and we’ve never really talked about it…”

Moze consciously pulls her sweater up a little more over her shoulders. “Do you, uh, want to do it now?” she asks.

“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that. No pressure or anything, plus it’s Movie/Video Game/Pizza Night. Just, forget I asked about it, okay?” He puts his arm around her so she could lean into him. They stay like that for the remainder of the movie, but Ned can’t shake this looming feeling that lingers in the room.

Yeah, he definitely just complicated things in their always-great relationship now. 

 

* 

*

*

 

His button-up is nearly off when they’re in the middle of taking advantage of a half-day and her parents still being at work. But he isn’t entirely focused on her like he usually is when they had this kind of time to themselves. It becomes this anxiety about whether or not  _ this time _ was the right time.

So, of course, his mouth decides that it’s the appropriate time to open itself and kill the mood.

“So, are we doing this today?” he asks, a bit too eager.

Her lips stop moving across his collarbone as she repositions herself from straddling him on the bed. Moze narrows her eyes at him. “You know, I’m beginning to question whether you really mean it when you say ‘no pressure’ about the sex thing.”

He grabs a nearby pillow and groans into it in frustration before tossing it behind his head. “I did mean it, okay?” he says. “Just, I can’t stop thinking about it ‘cause Cookie said something about it being three years and nothing—”

“You talk to Cookie about our sex life!?” she yells. She gets off him in a flash and starts to straighten her shirt.

“Once!” Shoot, he should stop panicking and think about who’s  _ clearly _ at fault here. “No, wait, he’s the one who brought it up!”

“Jesus, what did you tell him, that you don’t get enough?” She starts to get up from the bed, but he figures he’s got nothing to lose in an attempt to stop her from leaving.

“Wait, Moze!”

She yelps in surprise when he tackles her around the waist and breaks her fall as they land on the floor together.

He feels her breath tickle his neck (while he recovers from a possible concussion, no big deal) and opens his eyes to find her waiting for him to have an explanation. Ugh, now he feels bad for bringing all of this up.

“I’m sorry. It’s not a big deal, I promise,” he says, and he means it.

Her eyebrows wrinkle in worry as she runs a hand through his hair. “Well, it’s gonna be eventually, isn’t it?” she asks.

“Look, Moze.” They never really show a ton of affection towards each other, but he feels like he needs to right now because they’re  _ kinda _ talking about a huge thing here. “I don’t care about what pace we’re at. I just know that you’re my best friend, and if we went through potty training together, I think we can handle some stupid hormones.”

She rolls her eyes and smiles at him. “Whatever, ‘Wedgepicker,’” she says, and relief spreads throughout his body as he laughs at the old nickname. He’s so sure their friendship can withstand anything. Moze is easily the most important person in the world to him.

They resume making-out for a couple of minutes before his back decides to cramp during the part when her hand moves further down his torso.

He groans in pain to break the kiss, and she totally uses it to her advantage. “That’s karma for talking to Cookie about our sex life!”

“Yeah, yeah, you can kick his ass tomorrow,” he says. “I think I’m seeing a light right now.”

 

*

*

*

 

Things are okay for the most part since they last mentioned the sex thing. (In other words, this means they haven’t had any long kisses, awkward groping, or bedroom sessions for the past month and a half to even hint at bringing it up again.)

Moze is on prom court, to no one’s surprise, as they revealed earlier in the week. Everyone at school gossips and assures her that she had their vote for prom queen, though she doesn’t seem to enjoy the attention and takes him aside to tell him to be quick about going to his locker after school so they can bolt home before it got crazier.

People also take the opportunity to tell him that he had to raise the bar when it came time to ask her to prom, not that he didn’t already know. Cookie eyes him all week with that  _ it’s almost crunch time _ look. It gets really annoying after the first three times he catches him spying on them in-between classes.

They’re driving home on Friday, and he’s wondering when the last time they belted out a song on the radio together was when she clears her throat and breaks the silence.

“Uh, I heard Quirrley asked Cindy Pope out to prom today.”

“Yeah, I was part of the confetti clean up crew. Not fun.” Their high school is a lot bigger than James K. Polk, so not everyone can keep up with everyone else’s lives like before. Most of them managed to stay close, like Cookie and Lisa, while others like Missy and Loomer got pulled out of the school system and were transferred to other schools  _ (military and private, respectively) _ .

Moze clears her throat again, and he knows what she’s going to say. Ned doesn’t have an answer for her because of how fixated he’s been on this whole weirdness between them. “Look, I know I haven’t exactly planned anything—”

“My parents are away this weekend.”

He doesn’t expect that. “Oh?”

“Yeah, and I figured we haven’t had any time to ourselves, with college acceptances rolling in and all this prom stuff going on.”

They stop right in front of her house. He taps his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel, thinking of something not too forward to say. “So, what did you wanna do?”

Moze opens the car door and gives him a kiss on the cheek before she leaves. “Come by my place tomorrow night, okay?”

He watches her turn the key into her house then drives away. When he gets home, he adds a big, fat section about sex to the Guide, including a very long essay explaining how it ruins lives and all your hopes and dreams.

 

*

*

* 

 

It’s not like he’s never fantasized about this moment since they started going out. He’s facing a totally hot, half-naked Moze in her matching black underwear, and he might ruin his own if he stares for longer than he’s already been. Even the sight of her in a bikini gets him going, and Ned’s woken up a few times to some, er, vivid dreams, so there should be no reason why he should be protesting to a night alone with her.

It just…doesn’t feel right.

She obviously wants to do it, right? He’s always been able to read her, but this time it’s all a big blur. It’s kind of like the whole “I like you, will it risk our friendship” thing they first started with. He knows he wants it, but this feels forced and so not them.

It takes him a lot of effort to stop her from climbing on top of him and just doing the thing already.

“Moze, are you sure you want to do this?” he asks her mid-kiss. She’s rushing herself in that overachieving way she does when she studies for big tests and before every fight they have.

“Yeah, sure, let’s do it, what’re you waiting for?” she says and tries to continue unbuttoning his shirt, but he stops her completely and sits up.

“Seriously, Moze. Come on, you’re acting like you do before a volleyball game. Talk to me, please.” He takes her hands, but then a light goes off in his head about they were talking about in the car yesterday and he backs away a little. “Is this about me not asking you to prom yet? Because if it is I—”

She snorts. “Oh, come on, do you really think I care about that?” She slides next to him on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. “You can probably ask me right now and I wouldn’t even care about what color we’re wearing. The other girls want to do a gemstone theme. It’s so cheesy.”

“So, what’s up then?” he asks.

She props her head up with her elbow and faces him. “Well, we’ve been weird lately, and it freaked me out so I thought you wanted this or whatever.”

They share a look, and the next thing he knows, she starts giggling and then they’re cracking up at the stupidity of their situation.

They spend the rest of the night making up for such an awkward month. He’s got her head in his lap after she gets dressed in a shirt she took from him a while back, and they’re watching some talk show on the couch when she decides to speak up.

“We’ve been together for like, three-and-a-half years, and we’re scared of sex. I’ve seen you in tighty-whiteys more than twenty times, watched you vomit an entire blue slushie, rescued you from the girl’s bathroom, felt you wet the bed-”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” he says and smiles down at her. “We’re pretty stupid. But whatever we decide to do, I don’t want it to feel like the end of the world if we don’t do it, you know?”

“Then I don’t know what’s taking you so long on that prom invitation,” she teases.

“Wait a minute, I thought you said-“

“I heard Loomer’s back in town. He wanted to see everybody, and he’s  _ especially _ excited to show off what a proper gentleman he’s become to a certain prom princess…”

“Oh god…”

 

*

*

*

 

He revisits his old middle school with one goal in mind. He runs into his old teachers Principal Wright and Mr. Sweeney along the way, but the person he’s looking for is tucked away in the Custodian’s closet taking care of…well, probably nothing.

He knocks on the door, and out pops a disheveled looking man who looks really happy to see him. Ned vaguely remembers an old theory he and his friends had about Gordy really being an undercover James Bond.

“Gordy, I need a favor.”

 

*

*

*

 

So he manages to accidentally set a car on fire, shred his outfit for the day, and ruin a perfectly good bouquet of roses from his mother’s garden. If that doesn’t set the bar, then he might as well give up on his idea for the senior prank.

“Now you weren’t expecting  _ that _ , huh!” he exclaims, right before the vice-principal of the high school comes outside to see the damage.

“Aren’t I obligated to say ‘yes’ since I’m your girlfriend?” she yells over all the kids that have crowded around them.

“I don’t know, you tell me. What’s it gonna be, Moze?” The principal comes out a second later and screeches at him to meet her in her office, and he has maybe three seconds of Gordy-stalling-time to get an answer.

She hesitates just to tease him, but she hugs him and says yes for show anyway. And as the vice-principal pulls him by what’s left of his clothing into the administrative office, he can see her laughing at him, and he thinks to himself that he’s got a pretty cool best friend.

 

*

*

*

 

He walks over to Moze’s house with his mom that evening, corsage box ready in hand. Cookie’s already there and complains about the way his cummerbund itches in all the wrong places right when they walk through the door. When they hear his mom, Mrs. Mosley, and Mrs. Zemo start squealing and clicking their cameras on, he’s completely caught off-guard when he sees his girlfriend come down the stairs after Lisa. Moze is in this deep turquoise number that most definitely brings out her eyes, and her hair is down swirling all around her in his absolute favorite way. She decided to go along with the jewel theme, he notices, but he doesn’t mind at all.

“Too much?” she asks him with an unsure look. He shakes his head at a loss for words and puts on the corsage for pictures.

He hugs her from behind later when no one’s looking and whispers in her ear. “You look  _ really _ good,” he says. He feels her getting goosebumps from the touch and laughs as he opens the car door for her.

The prom itself is what they expect: lights everywhere, dancing to mainstream music, chaperones just giving up because there are too many kids getting in trouble for dancing too close. She doesn’t get chosen for prom queen, and even though everyone is surprised, Moze doesn’t even seem to hear it (he thinks she probably paid off the person who’s in charge of the votes).

They dance to a couple of songs with all their friends, and finally a slow song comes on and everyone splits up into pairs. She’s unconsciously massaging circles on the back of his neck when he decides to say something.

“Are you having fun?” he asks.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, you know, the pictures, the dancing, the spiked punch. God, I love prom fever,” she says with a hint of playful sarcasm, but he knows she likes the way he’s holding her right now because she nestles in a little bit closer to him. He’s about to lean in to kiss her when the song changes and everyone’s pulling at them to join in, but Ned can’t keep his eyes off her for the entire night.

 

*

*

*

 

As soon as prom season is over, they’re back to their regular routine whenever they have the house to themselves, but this time he’s not nervous about what might happen next. It’s just Moze, always has been.

Though, the way she’s running her hand over his chest right now might bring up a visitor any second now.

They come up for air, and she manages to swiftly pull up his t-shirt over his head while he’s busy fumbling with the buttons on her blouse. It makes him curse, but she kisses his frustration away and his focus leans more towards her hand that’s getting very near his— _ oh _ . He’s starting to sweat, but even though he’s probably making a complete idiot of himself in front of her, there has been no other time when he’s wanted her more than right now.

“Do you have a condom?” she asks. Moze is glowing; she’s in a tan bra, and he can see a peek of her bright blue underwear from her jeans. She’s pretty much his entire world right now.

He nods and reaches for his nightstand. When she offers to open the little silver wrapper, he cups her cheek and says, “Hey, I’m ready when you are.”

She takes the opportunity to slip off her jeans and straddle on top of him. “Bring it on,” she says, and her smile is so wide that he forgets about his new problem.

How do you undo a  _ front hook _ bra?

 

*

*

*

 

_ If you and your girlfriend or boyfriend want to talk about sex, check out these tips: _

_ Tip 3046: Don’t be afraid to bring it up. It’s not good to automatically assume rejection; in reality, you both have probably thought about it, so if you’re not comfortable with just jumping right in, it’s okay to talk about it out loud. You—and your relationship—will thank you for the openness and honesty. _

_ Tip 3050: Always use protection. If you’re unsure or embarrassed to go to your local drugstore to buy condoms or other contraceptives, ask your boyfriend/girlfriend to go with you. You’ll build a strong sense of trust that keeps things more comfortable when you’re in the bedroom. _

_ And finally, Tip 3102: Don’t feel like you’re pressured to have sex because everyone else is. Sex is an intimate moment between you and your girlfriend/boyfriend; only you two should have a say in it, because in the end, you are the ones affected by it, not everyone else. _

_ Besides, you may just end up with your best friend, and while sex changes things, it’s not so scary doing it with someone you love and know you can take on the world with. _

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a thing after re-watching this show a few years ago and finally decided to publish because why not. TBH - I don't even know when teenagers start having sex on average, but since Ned is a dork about most things, he's totally a dork about sex, too, and that's why it takes so long for them to get there. But I mean, what do I know.


End file.
